Wilderness areas, such as the mountainous backcountry of Montana, are very popular as beautiful vacation destinations. The wilderness offers memorable adventures with its breathtaking views and unique wildlife encounters that are unparalleled by other family ventures.
The wilderness can also be a potentially dangerous environment, particularly for children who have become separated from their parents. When lost in the outdoors, children can generally take care of their physical needs. When wet, they find dry areas. When cold, they seek shelter. When tired, they sleep. Children typically have more trouble controlling their emotional fear. The trauma of being separated from parents in an unknown and scary wilderness understandably creates extreme anxiety in a small child.
Another hazard associated with children who are lost in the wilderness concerns the tremendous difficulty of searching for them. Due to their small size, children are not easy to spot from surveillance aircraft or during ground rescue sweeps, particularly if they are not properly dressed in easily visible clothing. Visual contact with a lost child is further impaired by darkness during nighttime hours.
Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus to pre-educate children on survival techniques and to assist children in the event that they become separated from their parents and lost in the wilderness. The apparatus should aid the child physically and emotionally and help facilitate the rescue efforts of workers attempting to locate the child. This invention provides such an apparatus.